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Xavier School (光啓学校) is a Jesuit Catholic college preparatory school with a distinct Chinese and Filipino character.

Founded and managed by the Society of Jesus, the school is a K-12 school, offering a three-level curriculum: Early Education, Grade School, and High School. Xavier School is also an IB World School, authorized to offer the International Baccalaureate Diploma Program (IBDP), a rigorous and innovative academic program recognized by universities worldwide.

ADAGE

When it’s time to hit the books and spend a night behind the desk, much goes on in the inner depths of a student’s mind. Because of the constant desire for sleep, unending craving for food, and even basketball updates that consistently incite one’s imagination, a study session often becomes less of what it was meant to achieve.

In Merriam Webster’s terms, “adage” is a mere general truth expressed in various forms and media. Surely enough, Adage is exactly that. The concept was simple: create a unique, visual representation of what majority of the students today have in their minds during tests and busy weeks. As I slowly crafted numerous drafts in my mind, I struggled for ideas. What does go on in a student’s head? Then, it hit me—Twitter.

For the past few weeks, Xaverians across the metro have been facing the much-dreaded “hell week,” and now, the QT week. While some remained weaned on a steady diet of gaming, others spent their time contemplating about their notes. Sure enough, my timeline was teeming with the content I was looking for. The various images that were expressed in the student’s “thinking cloud” were based on actual tweets of some of my batch mates, and stand as a culmination of the thoughts of over 50 students.

More than just a social experiment, Adage also stands as a personal art experiment for me. With the advantages that the innovative One2One Program provided me and my schoolmates, it only made sense that I start learning more about what my iPad was capable of. So, I challenged myself: Let’s try something new.

This piece was special; it allowed for avenues for experimentation with several techniques and exploration of the tools that our devices could provide. Drafted, sketched, and digitally colored in Adobe Ideas, this piece definitely drifted away from my usual pen-and-paper sketches. The art itself was composed of five layers of colors, shadows, and lines. Long story short, 100% of the piece, in its entirety, was made on the iPad.

Truly, there is only so much that one’s expression of matters can deliver. As I, myself, am going through these exams, I guess it’s safe to say this was rather “accurate.” It’s often easy to miss that A+ and shift away from the world our textbooks and e-books haul us into, but as my schoolmates would know, nothing beats the sweet taste of victory in the end of a long, heated battle. The world that exists in a student’s head remains an enigma.